Super Lap Battle Finals - Buttonwillow Raceway

Buttonwillow Raceway-Buttonwillow, CA

November is truly a great month for the automotive industry. It marks the end of the heavy event season but it also brings two really important gatherings for our segment, SEMA and the world famous Super Lap Battle Finals. This event has always been known to bring the fastest cars from both sides of the Pacific for a time attack session of epic proportions.

This year I made the trek out to the dilapidated freeway offramp that is the town of Buttonwillow slightly more prepared than last year. Although the hotel outlook was just as grim as ever at least this time I had packed my own sheets! Accompanying my sleep apparatus were four huge cases of photo gear, all necessary to ensure I was able to capture the kind of shots that would actually do justice to the automotive spectacle I was about to partake in witnessing.

When I arrived on Tuesday afternoon to catch the practice sessions I took a quick survey of the cars that were already out at BW gettin' busy. I was quite surprised not to see the Team Tarzan (aka Cusco)STI that came dangerously close to breaking HKS' overall track record last year. It seemed as though the team was only a new gearbox away from taking the whole thing but alas the car was nowhere to be seen.

That's not to say there weren't any highly-anticipated cars huddled up in the paddocks. One of the first sights that blasted my retinas upon rolling into the pits was Sierra Sierra Enterprises' massive vehicle hauler, a telltale sign that their infamous Evo VIII I had only seen in pictures must be lurking somewhere nearby. The nearly all carbon-fiber exterior of the car only begins to hint at the level of engineering that went into it. The chassis and electronics setup is at a level I've never witnessed in American time attack builds, but it comes as no surprise since these guys are versed in racing not only Formula Atlantic cars, but jets! Regardless, for any team to come out with something this gnarly on their first ever road-going car build is extremely impressive.

On the other end of the spectrum, I was stoked to see Ken Chitwood's S2000 freshly outfitted in its only-one-in-existence prototype Voltex aero kit. Looks aside, the car is very timid but extremely well-balanced, everything a time attack car should be. To say this car was popular amongst point-and-shoot camera toting pit goers would be a severe understatement. The car drew crowds around it so large that I eventually gave up on attempting to photograph it until it was on-track and bystander free. The new look is really sharp and led to some incredible times.

After finishing some staged photoshoots I went back to the pit area and chatted with a few of the teams until the BW trademark pink evening sky faded into night. Spending a night in Buttonwillow always leads to one thing, dinner at a certain BBQ restaurant that will remain nameless. The dinner has become a staple of SLB for what I can only assume to be two factors: it allows enough room for everyone to sit at the same restaurant and it's essentially the only non-fast food option. The menu in front of you is poised to deliver culinary empty promises. Imagine flavorless beef jerky served at room temperature with some BBQ sauce slathered on it and you've virtually experienced WRBBQ.

After waking up malnourished at the crack of dawn I was only a Starbucks stop away from heading the track. When I arrived, the teams were already well underway preparing, tweaking and fine-tuning the cars to get every last drop out them for the single fastest lap. The competition was sure to be fierce and there were many records placed on the chopping block for the cars to slash away at. Unfortunately some mechanical failures took out two class front-runners early on. Loi Song's Sportcar Motion EG hatchback, recently rebuilt to Unlimited class specs, suffered an engine failure and an off-track excursion that left little of the front end intact. The previous Unlimited FR record holding BC/C-West carbon S2000 also was unable to come out to play as Tyler McQuarrie had to stand by idly watching his record being stabbed at.

Four teams looked like they had a fighting chance at nearing the overall record of 1:43.523 set by HKS in 2007. Sierra Sierra, FX Motorsports, Crawford and AMS all looked like they would get very close. The fastest three cars were separated by less than a half of a second! Unfortunately none of the teams were able to break into the 1:44 zone, Sierra Sierra being the closest and taking top honors with a time of 1:45.061. The overall record would stand for another year, but nearly every other record was destroyed in 2009.

Billy Johnson piloted the sinister FX/Cricket NSX to a blistering time of 1:45.247, the second fastest time of the day and broke the old Unlimited FR record held by BC/C-West by over 1.5 seconds! In Street FR, Rob Walker tore up BW config 13 in the Evasive S2000 (featured just before this article) blowing away the old record of 1:57.711 with a fastest time of 1:56.762. Not only was the blue S2K the fastest Street FR it was actually the fastest Street Class car period, coming within one-tenth of setting the outright Street Class record!

The Limited AWD class was a three-way battle between Ryan Gates, Tim Kuo and JC Meynet. Although the Evasive Evo did best its old record, Gates would take the crown with a time of 1:49.805 setting the new record. Another of Evasive's records went to the wayside, this one uncontested. Windspeed Motorsports must have done a lot of work in the last year to knock almost five seconds off last year's time setting a new Street FF record of 2:00.256, annihilating the previous record by more than three whole seconds!

The "most epic record-smashing award of SLB '09" (if there were such a thing) would have to go to Chris Rado and the World Racing Scion TC. Chris came into this event with a monkey on his back and had his sights set on breaking the record. The last two years Chris suffered from classic episodes of bad luck. This year Rado and his team implemented a few new weapons. The "Fwing" on the front of the car might be questionable looking but the performance gain over last year's setup is unquestionable. Rado would also debut Continental's newest tire, a collaboration with Hoosier. The result? An unfathomable 1:49.703, making it the first FWD car to break the 1:50 mark. With this time Chris also broke the longest-standing record in SLB history, previously held by a GM Factory backed Cobalt.

Even though HKS and the Japanese seem to have the upper-hand in time attack it's clear that the US teams are getting more serious about this motorsport. With teams like Sierra Sierra, AMS, FX Motorsports, Crawford and BC pushing the envelope in their respective classes, next year is sure to be intense. The competition keeps getting closer and more exciting. It's only a matter of time before someone takes a slice at the HKS record. Could 2010 be the year that the US takes over?

Playing Catch Up - SLB's Ten Hottest Laps
Time attack, just like drifting, originated in Japan. Therefore it's no surprise that the Japanese are at the forefront of the sport. However, in the US' limited involvement, we have already made some astonishing advances. Here's a look at the 10 fastest cars to ever run the Super Lap Battle finals. Take note that nine of these top times were counted in the last two years, proving that the community as a whole is moving in the right direction.

Super Lap Battle Finals 2009 Results

POSITION

TEAM

CAR

DRIVER

CLASS

TIME

1

Sierra Sierra Enterprises

Mitsubishi Evo IX

David Empringham

Unlimited AWD

1:45.061

2 *

Cricket/FX Motorsports Development

Acura NSX NA1

Billy Johnson

Unlimited FR

1:45.247

3

Crawford Performance

Subaru WRX STI GRB

Tarzan Yamada

Unlimited AWD

1:45.552

4

AMS/NOS Energy Drink Time Attack Team

Mitsubishi Evo X

Paul Gerrard

Unlimited AWD

1:46.829

5

Driving Ambition

Acura NSX NA1

Kip Olson

Unlimited FR

1:48.072

6

Dell(tm) Equallogic/GOTO:Racing

Nissan GT-R R35

Brian Lock

Unlimited AWD

1:49.366

7 **

WORLD Racing

Scion tC

Chris Rado

Unlimited FF

1:49.703

8 ***

Gates311.com/AMS

Mitsubishi Evo X

Ryan Gates

Limited AWD

1:49.805

9

Evasive Motorsports

Mitsubishi Evo IX

Tim Kuo

Limited AWD

1:49.977

10

Harmonmotive/AQ Motorsports

Subaru WRX STI GDB

JC Meynet

Limited AWD

1:50.202

11

HASport/Ksport

Honda Civic EG

Tage Evanson

Unlimited FF

1:53.002

12

TEAM 5ZIGEN

Honda Accord Euro-R CL7

Katsuyuki Hirakana

Unlimited FF

1:53.422

13

LIC Motorsports

Subaru WRX STI GDB

Dr. Russ Warr

Limited AWD

1:53.835

14

JHPUSA/AQ

Honda S2000 AP1

JC Meynet

Limited FR

1:55.024

15

Forged Performance

Nissan GT-R R35

Sharif Abdelbaset

Limited AWD

1:55.583

16

Fair Enough Competition

Mazda Miata NA6

Matt Andrews

Limited FR

1:55.763

17

Eastside Muffler

Mitsubishi Evo IX

Joe Santiago

Limited AWD

1:55.985

18

UMS Tuning

Mitsubishi Evo VIII

Anthony Szirka

Unlimited AWD

1:56.434

19

BuddyClub/APR/trackHQ.com

Lotus Elise

Manly Kao

Limited FR

1:56.640

POSITION

TEAM

CAR

DRIVER

CLASS

TIME

20 ****

Evasive Motorsports

Honda S2000 AP2

Robert Walker

Street FR

1:56.762

21

Tomei-GT

Subaru WRX STI GDB

Tarzan Yamada

Street AWD

1:57.188

22

HB Speed/Cobb Tuning/Robispec

Mitsubishi Evo X

Jon Drenas

Street AWD

1:57.630

23

Stop Tech

Mitsubishi Evo X

Stephen Ruiz

Street AWD

1:57.699

24

Fair Enough Competition /

KBR Performance / ROBISpec

Mitsubishi Eclipse II

Matt Andrews

Limited FF

1:58.027

25

Trackspeed Engineering

Mazda Miata NA6

Andrew Kidd

Limited FR

1:58.119

26

NASA

Toyota MR-2 SW20

Jeremy Croiset

Street FR

1:59.768

27

Bergenholtz Racing

Mazda RX-8

Edward Bergenholtz

Unlimited FR

1:59.776

28

OctaneReport.com/M1FD/TTech

Mitsubishi Evo IX

Russ Warr

Street AWD

1:59.789

29

TEIN/Import Tuner

Nissan 370Z

Tyler McQuarrie

Street FR

1:59.829

30

AFI Turbo

Honda S2000 AP2

Jeremy Renshaw

Limited FR

1:59.830

31

Forged Performance

Nissan GT-R R35

Jared Stoops

Limited AWD

1:59.963

32

ZielSports/JIC

Nissan GT-R R35

Jon Kaneda

Street AWD

2:00.162

33 *****

WindSpeed Motorsports/Continental Tire

Dodge SRT-4

Douglas Wind

Street FF

2:00.256

34

Pizza Factory/Robispec

Nissan 370Z

Robi Fuller

Street FR

2:00.585

35

TEIN /AMS/C-West/HB Speed

Mitsubishi Evo X

Robert Walker

Street AWD

2:00.908

36

Evolution Racewerks

BMW 135i

VJ Mirzayan

Street FR

2:00.994

37

Team SCS

Honda Civic EF

Darin Nishimura

Limited FF

2:01.139

38

Berk Technology

BMW 135i

Mike Bonanni

Street FR

2:01.534

39

Team SCS

Subaru WRX STI GRB

Paul Yim

Street AWD

2:01.772

40

Honda Tuning

Honda Civic EG

Dylan Huig

Limited FF

2:02.884

POSITION

TEAM

CAR

DRIVER

CLASS

TIME

41

Team SCS

Subaru WRX STI GRB

Jonathan Gih

Street AWD

2:03.605

42

DoubleDownMotorsports.com

Nissan 370Z

Mike Bonanni

Street FR

2:04.205

43

GT Channel/GTI

Nissan 350Z

Dai Yoshihara

Street FR

2:04.872

44

Raceline USA

Honda Civic Si FG

Elton Lo

Street FF

2:05.733

45

Sparco

Mitsubishi Evo X

Emile Bouret

Street AWD

2:05.794

46

SPEC Clutch

Porsche 911

David Norton

Street FR

2:06.051

47

HASport

Honda Civic EG

Gabe Ortega

Street FF

2:07.298

48

Honda Tuning/JHP USA

Honda Civic Type R EK9

Ryan Novak

Limited FF

2:07.394

49

SR Motorsports

Nissan 240SX S13

Steven Rogers

Street FR

2:08.217

50

Modified Magazine

Acura Integra DC2

Peter Tarach

Street FF

2:08.322

51

JSP Performance/Circuit Hero

Acura Integra DC2

Reza Yaghoubi

Limited FF

2:09.895

* new Unlimited FR record, beating old record of 1:46.893 held by C-West/BC Honda S2000

** new Unlimited FF record, beating old record of 1:51.318 held by GM Performance Division Cobalt

*** new Limited AWD record, beating old record of 1:50.003 held by Evasive Motorsports Evo IX

**** new Street FR record, beating old record of 1:57.711 held by Yokohama/ Boost Logic Toyota Supra

***** new Street FF record, beating old record of 2:03.557 held by Evasive Motorsports Honda Civic

MORE EVENT COVERAGE

The idea of throwing an event dedicated to the wildly popular Rays wheels has popped up more than once around our office. It was only a matter of time before those ideas grew into a full-blown event that took over our office's parking lot